My son is 13 years and he is going to attend in german schools in Karlsruhe next year. He knows nothing about german language. I want to know how difficult would be for him to follow his classes and how long it would take him to learn German language such that to be able follow his courses without any problem?
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He’ll pick it up, it’s really not that a hard language. Before I learned German, I thought that I would be left behind and wouldn’t understand anything but I was wrong.
Hi Gharibe,
Children learn realitively easy when they are young. The time it takes for him to learn will be dependant on various factors such as:
*The lesson time.
* Whether he will practice what he has learned in his discretionary time.
* If he will practice writing sentences and making sure to spell the words correctly.
When I decided to learn German (Self-taught)
this is how I went about it. I wrote the sentence to be translated in English.
Underneath I wrote the German sentence.
When it came to study-time, I placed a sheet of paper over the page and moved it slowly downward so that I could read the English sentence.
I then looked to see if I had translated/spoken the sentence in German correctly. If I failed, I placed a cross against the end of the English question to remind me next time, that I had failed.
Eventually the crosses gave way to ‘ticks’.
Because your son will be working in a dedicated training environment and will also be immersed in the culture, I believe he will learn quickly, but please remember, the trick is to be able to speak, read and write the language so that he may become fluent.
I wish him every success.
I grew up in Germany and the schools usually let children that just arrived in Germany and had a different native language repeat the last class they had had in their country so they could concentrate on learning the language.
Of course the best idea would be to let him attend classes right away, switch TV programs to German with subtitles (for the start) and similar measures, see to it that he learn as much as he can so that he won’t have problems finding friends in Germany.
It really depends from person to person. Some kids can pick up a language in a couple months, some can’t get it for years. Going into a school where you don’t speak the common language can be very difficult and frustrating (harder to understand in class, make friends, etc.). I would recommend Taking a class, or try one of the various softwares, or tapes.
Best of luck
Since he’s going to be in Germany; he’ll pick it up pretty fast.